


Coda: Sharp Teeth

by letmegeekatyou



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1201579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmegeekatyou/pseuds/letmegeekatyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Cas can't get the Winchesters to get along, maybe the surprise return of Linda Tran can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coda: Sharp Teeth

Sam and Dean hadn’t been home for long when Cas sat them down for a staring contest.

Well, it wasn’t supposed to be a staring contest. It was supposed to be an honest discussion about things like mutual respect and what an adult sibling relationship should actually look like, but neither of the boys felt like talking, and Cas’s patience was divine and infinite, and so the three of them simply stared at one another across the table, scowling occasionally.

Dean felt he’d said all he had needed to; hadn’t he admitted that he messed up? That he wanted things to go back to normal? Okay, so maybe normal wasn’t great all the time, maybe things were a little fucked up, but they’d gotten by okay. And what could he say now to make things better? He couldn’t go back and say no to Gadreel, and even if he did, Sam would be dead now, and so would Charlie, and Cas. Like it or not, Gadreel had saved a lot of lives before he…

Before Dean let him kill Kevin. Because he had, hadn’t he? Kevin was his responsibility, he’d as good as adopted him, and what happened… well, that was on Dean’s head, no one else’s. And he felt the weight of it, and if Sam thought he didn’t.

Sam frowned and ran a hand through his hair, giving Cas a look. Because Sam had said it, hadn’t he? That they couldn’t go on like they had been, that Dean needed to start treating him as an adult, not letting freaking angels set up shop in his head. So why couldn’t Cas just pull that profound bond shit and explain to Dean exactly how he had fucked up? I mean, what good was an angel if he couldn’t make stubborn, interfering older brothers see reason?

Not that angels had been very helpful lately. Sam loved Cas, of course, but not for his heavenly qualities. And Gadreel…well, Sam wanted nothing more than to destroy him, piece by piece, for what he had done. What he had made Sam do. He had made him into a weapon, turned him against the people he loved. And if Dean couldn’t admit that he should have trusted Sam to know when it was time to walk away, what good was all that guilt, in the end?

So they sat there, silent and angry and full of regret, with no idea how to move forward and getting pretty tired of having an annoyed and frustrated angel glaring at them as if it was easy, as if saying it all would make it right between them.

Then, in a heartbeat, everything changed. Because that was the moment Sam’s phone rang. That was the moment they learned that Linda Tran was alive and looking for her son.

It took her two days to get to Lebanon from where Crowley had been keeping her, and when she arrived it was hard to believe she had survived the trip, much less the escape. Bruises crawled across her skin, and she had treated and wrapped so many lacerations that she had a mummy-like quality to her. But there was no denying that she was alive, unpossessed, and grieving in the fiercest and deepest way imaginable.

The boys hadn’t really spoken since she called, but each of them was feeling even more than before the weight of guilt. Linda demanded to know, and Sam explained, slowly and painfully, exactly what had happened to Kevin, and Dean took her to Kevin’s room, where she asked, coldly, to be left alone.

Dean joined Sam and Cas in the kitchen, which is when, after a long, awkward silence, Sam finally spoke.

"I wish I’d known. God, all that time. We should have been looking for her."

"We didn’t know, Sam," Dean answered angrily. "How were we supposed to know? When was the last time we had a win, huh? People don’t survive around us."

"Oh, I don’t know Dean, the three of us have come back from the dead, and Mrs. Tran wasn’t even that far gone.”

"I know. Fuck, Sam, I know." Dean rubbed his face and leaned back against the counter. "I fucked up. I should have listened to Kevin, man."

"We all should have done a lot of things," Cas said quietly. "If Dean had been more suspicious, if I had demanded to stay here, if Sam had been realized sooner what was happening…"

"But he didn’t." They all turned when Linda spoke from the doorway. Her eyes were red, but her face was dry. "None of you did. And now you’re standing around a kitchen fighting over who gets to take the blame for my son. My son, who was…” She shook her head.

"Don’t you dare turn him into something to feel guilty about. Don’t you dare turn him into another one on the list of people you’ve put in the ground, because that is a long list, boys, and it does nobody any good.” She walked over with quick steps and pulled up a chair next to Sam.

"Now you three are going to put away your useless, self-indulgent guilt, and we are going to hunt down the thing that is actually responsible, and we are going to make him pay for Kevin. Do you understand me?"

The boys looked at each other, all the unspoken things passing between them in the silence. Cas nodded, looking to the other two for confirmation, but they hesitated.

"I said, do you understand me, Winchesters?" Even Cas stood up straighter at her tone, and Sam and Dean spoke over each other quickly.

"Yes, ma’am."

"Yes, Mrs. Tran."

"Good. Now make me some coffee and tell me what you’ve got on Gadreel."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at http://sammysalive.tumblr.com/post/75104165463/sam-and-dean-hadnt-been-home-for-long-when-cas


End file.
